The Element of Surprise
by Totenkinder Madchen
Summary: Five times Bruce Banner surprised Darcy Lewis, and one time she returned the favor. A meet-cute for the gamma age: SHIELD files, three types of rabbi, bad take-out, hair dye, and near-death experiences with a twist. Fluff, friendship, character development. COMPLETE.
1. The First Surprise

**Author's Note:** What is it with me and rare pairings? And taking on more than I can handle, writing-wise?

Ah, well. When life sucks and two other major projects involve angst and torture scenes, out comes the fluff. "Avengers" has got me hook, line and sinker, and for some reason I've managed to fixate on Bruce Banner/Darcy Lewis—a completely noncanon but bizarrely amusing pairing that has so much potential for glorious disaster. It's hooked me so hard, in fact, that I've written a "Five and One" fic involving cuteness and developing relationships. Oy.

**Disclaimer:** Bruce Banner, Darcy Lewis, and all associated characters and concepts are property of Marvel Comics Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

**The Element of Surprise**

_by Totenkinder Madchen_

* * *

The First Surprise: Bruce Banner's life sucks.

She does the reading. She _has _to do the reading, because Darcy Lewis may be a lowly poli-sci major compared to the big brains of SHIELD, but she knows the value of getting your studying done before a test. And to be honest, "lab assistant to the motherfucking Hulk" is about as big a test as Darcy can imagine.

In retrospect, she probably should've seen it coming. SHIELD and its appropriately-named Polyphemus of a director—not that she'd ever call him Polyphemus to his face, because he'd probably recognize the reference, and nothing's worse than actually having another person _get_ your ultra-intellectual burn—was all for kicking her butt back into school, possibly with a memory wipe to keep things interesting. But they couldn't do without Jane, who was one of the only people on the planet capable of figuring out how to rebuild an Einstein-Rosen-Bifrost-rainbow-whatever-they-were-calling-it-these-days, and Jane didn't want to lose Darcy. Darcy had been touched at first, thinking Jane recognized her as one of the fellow brains, but then she'd realized that her brilliant boss was in dire need of a BFF and was clinging to Darcy like an anchor of normalcy in a sea of hunky gods and rewritten physics. So Jane had declared, rather shrilly, that no Darcy no deal.

SHIELD, understandably, was less than pleased. But somebody in the home office must've had a sense of humor (yeah, Darcy was shocked too) because while Darcy was now employed by SHIELD, there was nothing in her contract that said she was a Jane-exclusive gofer. And so it happened that, after the seventh assistant in the high-tech physics lab one floor down quit, Darcy learned that she was going to be the temporary new science slave of Dr. Bruce Banner. Otherwise known as the Hulk.

Yeah, Darcy does the reading. She's handed a big fat folder full of warnings in red ink, and she reads it all while mainlining espresso and listening to Jane having a breakdown over her friend's impending doom. Like _that's_ comforting at all.

Initially, she's scared. Who wouldn't be? This is the HULK. Smashy smashy. Darcy has only ever been smashed in the conventional sense, and even that hasn't been happening nearly enough lately, thanks to the kind of job that administers random drug tests for fun.

So okay, Hulk is one of the good guys now. Darcy chews on her lower lip, thinking about it. She's seen the footage from the Battle of Manhattan—he didn't hurt civilians, he saved Tony Stark's shiny butt, all that good stuff. It's hard to take "saving the world" and put it in the same category as "that guy everyone in the scientific community has been praying they never turn into, because being a monster that broke Harlem and hunted by the Army really sucks." Thor trusts him, but Thor is in Asgard getting Loki community service or having the guy's lips sewn shut or something, and she isn't exactly in a position to talk to any of the other Avengers. They're . . . you know . . . heroes. And none of them really hang around Jane's lab, anyway.

So she does the reading, even while Jane freaks out and calls every SHIELD higher-up she can think of, because without Thor Jane's Destroyer nightmares come back and she'll never be happy about massive things that can crush her with one hand. And while Jane freaks and makes her calls, Darcy sips her espresso and comes to a conclusion.

No wonder Dr. Bruce Banner is always angry, because Dr. Bruce Banner's life _sucks._

It's all there, in black and white and screaming red. Abusive father, cowed mother: SHIELD's intake medical report lists "HULK" under "medical conditions," and maybe that's the one that sticks with people, but even if Darcy is a flake she prepares for her tests and there's more than that. Deep-tissue scarring due to badly-healed juvenile fracture, it says. Broken bones at ages four, six, seven and eight, never properly taken care of, resulting in slightly lopsided shoulders and an occasionally-pinched nerve that he probably doesn't even notice any more.

The reports are sparse and clinical, but Darcy reads every line. Lots of suspicious injuries very young. Parents deceased at the same date and time; either a murder-suicide or an accident, and Darcy is willing to bet her diploma that with this family, it was tough to tell which. Taken in by his grandmother, scholarship student (no way he could afford tuition on his own) and later, triumph over adversity to become a great physicist and an expert in gamma radiation. Things were on the up-and-up, right? It's a _Rudy_-type story, the scrappy orphan's triumph over adversity. Too bad everyone's already read the ending.

Boom. Screwed over by General Ross and his own certainty that he was right, transformed by a failed experiment into the worst possible type of green power. Years on the run—and the records turn positively arcane at that point, just a mess of names and dates and lists of "Inserted/Recovered", and that second number is always lower than the first for some reason Darcy doesn't like thinking about.

Once she puts the folder down and reassures Jane (via mojitos, because the whole 'smashed' thing is starting to look a lot funnier now that it's after midnight) that she's not going to die, Darcy uses her shiny new SHIELD access to pull up videos of the Battle. Traffic cameras, mostly: it's not like anyone in Manhattan woke up that morning and decided to wire their homes because, y'know, alien battle incoming and that shit would look boss on YouTube. She traces Banner's movements from the outskirts of the city, catches just the very edge of the moment when he Hulks out—and then the camera suffers an acute attack of giant space whale crash-landing and there's nothing more to see.

He never looks happy in any of the footage. Even in the photos from his highest point, at Culver with (unfairly gorgeous) Betty Ross, there always seems to be a strained edge to him. Darcy looks at the reports of the lab incident and thinks about a man who was so determined to be right that he subjected himself to an experiment of that caliber.

Darcy Lewis knows people think she's shallow and stupid. Well, fuck the haters: she knows who she is and where she's going (A, a poli-sci major, B, nowhere in particular, but shut up she's making a damn point here). Ambition has never been one of her driving forces. She can worry about things like suits ganking her iPod because she's never been eaten up inside by the kind of need—to prove yourself, to be right, to make the world work your way—that so many scientists and broken people seem to have.

So what would it be like to have that kind of driving ambition, fueled by the kind of life Bruce Banner had . . . and then see it all fail? Everything you'd ever achieved, crushed by one mistake. All your fault.

Technically, of course, it's Ross's fault. But geniuses never see it that way, Darcy knows. Part of having the world be all about them means that anything that went wrong was because of them, too.

And they say _she's_ self-obsessed.

The first time Bruce Banner surprises Darcy Lewis, she hasn't even met him yet. And somehow, she finds herself worrying about him. Not the rage monster—the man.

Sheesh.


	2. The Second Surprise

**Author's Note:** Here we are again. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and faved this so far! Oh, and because I'm a moron and completely forgot to do this last chapter like I should've—thanks especially to my beta Ami Ree, who read all this ahead of time and told me if it sounded stupid.

This chapter is based on a bit of personal headcanon regarding the MCU Hulk. Banner's religion appears to be Catholic in at least some of the comics, but it's never touched on in the movies, so I felt free to play with possibilities here.

**Disclaimer:** Bruce Banner, Darcy Lewis, and all associated characters and concepts are property of Marvel Comics Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

The Second Surprise: Bruce Banner is a nice Jewish boy.

During her first day as lab slave to the one and only Hulk, said Hulk's alter ego barely pays attention to her. She starts out strong, walking into the lab all Pepperesque in towering heels and a skirt suit, because if you're going to face your fears there's worse ways to face them than looking like Pepper Potts, Goddess of Stark Industries. She's almost disappointed when the frazzled-looking Dr. Banner doesn't say too much to her. He doesn't even ask her name, which is kind of insulting until she remembers that he's been going through lab slaves like he goes through pants, and he probably doesn't think she's going to stick around.

Well, _that _sounds like a challenge. The next day Darcy is back in jeans, a warm sweatshirt and sneakers, carrying coffee and wearing a hat that has Nyancat on it. Because, fuck it, she really isn't Pepper and Banner's somehow sterile-yet-messy lab could use a little crazy of the non-smashy variety. She files and organizes everything she can get her hands on, puts up a "hang in there" kitten poster (she'd feel slightly awkward about messing with his stuff, but seriously, she doesn't think he even knows what color the walls ARE let alone what's on them) and gets noticed, albeit in the form of "oh, hand me that flash drive."

The third day, she does a little dance when she comes into the lab, because Banner noticed the poster. He also took it down, which is slightly less gratifying, but at least something penetrated the science coma. Progress!

The fourth day, they actually have a conversation, and Darcy doubts that either of them really anticipated its turnout.

"Got some forms for you to sign, boss-man," Darcy says, plopping them down next to the microscope. She's held off on the forms as long as possible—using paperwork as a way to get your boss to notice your existence is kind of needy, in her opinion—but Medical needs them ASAP, and they tend to get really tense in matters related to the Hulk.

"What now?" says Banner, reluctantly looking away from the slides he was examining. "Oh. Miss-?"

"Lewis," she says cheerfully. "You can call me Darcy if you like, though. I used to be Jane Foster's science monkey, but she should've looked over the contract wording a little more because it turns out I can be loaned to other scientists if their own monkeys are too wussy to hang around."

"Of course," he says, and takes off his glasses to clean them on the hem of his labcoat. Yes, he wears an honest-to-God labcoat: even Jane, who has more than anyone should know what to do with, is usually all about the jeans and comfy t-shirts. Maybe he's trying to separate himself from his alter-ego as much as possible. "The one who tased Thor."

That surprises Darcy. "You know about that?" she says. Banner smiles a little wryly and pulls the papers over to have a look.

"Thor likes to tell that story when he's had a few. He says he wants you to meet someone named Brunnhilde."

"The leader of the _Valkyries_? She _exists_? What am I saying, of course she does. Except with my luck she's probably a giant Viking space worm or something." Darcy doesn't really believe that, but "ditzy college girl" is a hard act to break, and she's not super-thrilled about her one SHIELD-worthy achievement being out of the bag already. Quick, subject change. "Sorry to interrupt science with all this stuff, but the Medical guys told me this paperwork is about ten thousand years overdue, and they need to know what kind of rabbi you prefer if you're dying."

Banner's just reached that line on the form, as a matter of fact, and his eyebrows shoot up. "I'm not sure what's more worrisome," he says, almost to himself as he looks over the options, "the fact that they know how I was raised, or the fact that they apparently have three different kinds of rabbis on staff."

"Hey, this is the twenty-first century. You've gotta have variety and flexibility if you want to compete in a fast-paced global market." Darcy peers over his shoulder. "If you're not sure, just pick 'Reform.' My Grandma Lewis says they're just like regular rabbis, only with sneakers."

He doesn't pick Reform. Instead he just stares at the form for a minute, as it's about to bite him. Darcy wonders what's going through his head, and whether a guy gives up on Jehovah after he gets an Other Guy, or even a father like Banner Sr. Shit, she's really sucking at this 'talk to your boss' thing. Topic change again! More ditzy college girl!

"Grandma would like you," she muses, tugging on one strand of her hair. "The Lewises have been Presbyterian for almost as long as those forms've been late, but she kind of had a crisis of faith when every nice Christian boy she ever tried to set me up with turned out to be a loser or a druggie. Then, for six blissful weeks, I was dating Yisroel Moskovitz and everything was perfect. She's definitely believing the 'God's chosen people' thing."

Banner blinks, settling his glasses back on his nose. _Victory! _Darcy cheers internally. Apparently Banner is like Jane in one important sense: just logical enough that Darcy's babble blows a fuse in their mental circuits and derails the Angst subroutine.

"I have a question," he says carefully, eyeing Darcy the way he was eyeing the form a minute ago. "Miss Lewis. You're familiar with the Avengers?"

"Sort of. I mean, I'm tight with Thor, but it's not like I live in the tower. Tony Stark's stared at my boobs a few times. I've got a lot of the knockoff merchandise, though." That's not a lie, either. The enterprisingly mercenary spirit of New York had been pretty quick to reassert itself after the Battle of Manhattan, and Darcy was downright thrilled to discover Times Square is now a virtual hotbed of black market souvenirs of the whole mess. The prize of her collection is a black velvet painting of the Avengers as The Last Supper: a glorious three-strikes-you're-out of bad taste.

Captain America as Jesus, of course. You really couldn't have it any other way.

"So you're familiar with the . . . roster, I suppose?" he says, bracing himself a little.

"Yep. Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk and my buddy Blondie. Though I'm pretty sure _everyone_ knows the roster by now. It's like the 'name all the D-Day beaches' of my generation."

Banner grins that humorless little grin again. "I don't think anyone actually can name all the beaches any more."

"Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword," Darcy rattles off, because there's more World War II in the poli sci curriculum than there are knockoff t-shirts in Times Square right now. "Omaha's my favorite to read about. It was a huge horrible mess, but even in the middle of all that shelling and dying, the Rangers got all the way up Pointe du Hoc and basically said 'Hey, is this all you got?' They accomplished all their objectives by 9 AM on D-Day. You just know that at some point one of them went 'Man, I'm bored. Let's go liberate a village or something.'"

The man in front of her is starting to look slightly dazed. "All right," he says, because apparently Darcy's command of American history is a little too much to process right now. "Look . . . the reason I was asking was that I wanted to make sure you're, um, aware of what you're getting into here."

Darcy shrugs. "My degree's in political science, but I've already worked for an astrophysicist. Shifting to regular physicist shouldn't be a problem. And I make great coffee."

Banner takes off his glasses again. They can't have gotten dirty in the last minute or so, but he cleans them again anyway. Nervous habit, she's guessing. "What I meant was, are you aware of my—connection with that group?"

"Oh, the Hulk thing, you mean?" He nods a little, looking wary. "No biggie. When Thor first crashlanded, I was doing an internship with Jane in New Mexico. Loki sent down this giant Gundam-type suit of armor to kill him and everyone else. It had fire for a face." She shrugs again. Not that the Destroyer is something she ever, ever, _ever _wants to meet again . . . but she's not going to say that to Dr. Banner, who seems to be half caught between "my new assistant is going to run away when she finds out who I am" and "my new assistant is a lunatic who doesn't care that I could possibly annihilate her." Admitting to the Destroyer, but not seeming too worked up about it, strikes a balance that will hopefully put his big brain at ease. "The way I see it, I'm usually in here for eight hours a day. That gives me only a one-third chance of being at Hulk Ground Zero even if it _does _happen, which it probably won't. I'm of the opinion that anyone who voluntarily shares living space with Stark has to have a pretty good tolerance for annoying things."

His mouth twitches, and it takes Darcy a second to realize that, holy crap, Bruce Banner is _smiling. _Just a little, the tiniest quirk of the lips, but it's there. She gives him the full Darcy grin back, and for a bit, there's a slightly awkward moment of shared amusement.

It ends. "I'm sorry, I should finish this," he says, glancing back down at the nearly-forgotten paperwork. He ticks something—Darcy doesn't quite see what it is—and speed-reads through the rest of the forms, signing each of them with what looks kind of like the hair clog Darcy once fished out of the shower after a weekend Thor visit but is, on further examination, probably his name.

"Wow, doc," she says as she takes the forms. "You _must _be smart. This signature is . . ." She turns the form sideways, scrutinizing it. "Yep, I think I see a B in there somewhere. Was it ever proven that there's some kind of inverse relationship between IQ and handwriting?"

He almost smiles again, but doesn't. "If it wasn't, I'm sure someone will try it any day now," he says. "I have to get back to work now. You should go get lunch—it's almost noon."

"Sure thing," she says. Darcy is nothing if not a helpful sort of lab slave. "What do you want me to get you?"

Banner blinks. "Sorry?"

"You want me to go get lunch, right? So what, do you keep kosher, or should I just grab something that looks tasty?"

"Oh, no. I meant lunch for _you." _His brow furrows slightly. "Does Dr. Foster make you buy her food?"

"Nah. With Jane, it's more like prying her away from the spectrograph long enough to stuff a sandwich down her throat." Darcy grins again, because it's true, and because he seems actually put out by the prospect of an assistant getting him food. "Seriously, though, I can grab you something if you need it," she adds in an impulsive burst of generosity. Jane has food issues, and Dr. Banner, well, he doesn't exactly look like a guy who's getting three squares a day. She's never seen anyone that seems so _worn._

"No, no, no. I'm fine." He waves her off. "Go eat."

"Gotcha." Darcy grabs her purse and heads for the door. "When should I be back? Half an hour?"

Banner glances around the lab, then shakes his head. "From the look of things, you've already filed the place to within an inch of its life—and I don't exactly need an extra pair of hands right now. Take an hour if you feel like it."

Sweet! She can go eat, then buy a box of those doughnuts SHIELD is collectively addicted to and see what kind of gossip she can bribe out of the mid-level agents. And maybe pass on some tips to the cleaning staff, too—like the fact that Asgardian hair clogs laugh at your puny human Liquid Plumber. "Doc," she says warmly, "you just got promoted to My Favorite Avenger Ever. Later!"

Before he can reply—and possibly get awkward again—she swings out of the lab, feeling much more cheerful than she ever expected after a conversation with the world's top expert in gamma radiation.

The second time Bruce Banner surprises Darcy Lewis, it turns out he's not only a nice Jewish boy, but a real mensch to boot.


	3. The Third Surprise

**Author's Note:** So, as you can see from the rapid updates, I've already written this entire story. I'm staggering the chapters a little, but the response I've gotten has been positive so far, so I feel confident putting up the third chapter. I've been trying to stick to one per day, but it's about one AM here now, so that technically makes it a new day, right?

An additional little note, by the way: much like with another story of mine, the list of "surprises" used here is a list of prompts I self-generated by taking notes while watching "Thor" and "The Incredible Hulk." When I really like a film—or am puzzled by its plot or inconsistencies—I'll write down random phrases, thoughts, or lines that come to mind while I watch, then use those for prompts. This chapter's surprise is the prompt that originally got me started writing this.

Thanks again to lovely beta Ami Ree, who fed my plotbunnies and gave me support when I started shipping this slightly crackish pairing.

And remember, folks—review a story, feed an author!

**Disclaimer:** Bruce Banner, Darcy Lewis, and all associated characters and concepts are property of Marvel Comics Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

The Third Surprise: Bruce Banner is in this country illegally.

Sort of.

"You snuck across the border?" she says, because she's never met anyone who's done that before, and because it's hard to imagine the fluffy doc hiding in the back of a pickup truck and avoiding INS.

His lip curls a little, his expression rueful. "I had to get back into the country," he says, and she doesn't ask why, "and I couldn't exactly go to a US embassy and declare that I was a citizen."

"Not with . . ." Darcy mimes a mustache and makes a finger-gun with the other hand. Banner nods.

Darcy is closing out her third week as official assistant to Dr. Bruce Banner, and the world hasn't ended yet. Jane isn't calling her twice a day to check on her any more (although it's amazing how often they just happen to run into each other in the hallway), and there has been a complete lack of large green men breaking things. In fact, the most disastrous thing so far has been Darcy's adventure into the magical world of Banner's Personal Database, otherwise known as "how the hell is this organized? Is this in Phoenician or something? Seriously, doc, I love you, but am I being punk'd?"

The third surprise comes on the heels of a discussion about food. Banner, Darcy has discovered, is almost as bad about eating as Jane—not quite to the force-feeding level, but he has a tendency to get wrapped up in his work and forget that his body needs fuel. (Which, combined with the massive number of calories his file says he needs to eat post-Hulking, must lead to the most bipolar blood sugar levels in the history of mankind. Darcy has taken to stashing Gummi Worms around the lab, just in case.)

Trial and error has revealed that his tastes in food change sharply depending on the day. When the research is going well, or he's had more than five hours of sleep and is consequently about as perky as he gets, he likes exotic or ethnic food: curry is a favorite, the hotter and scarier the better, which Darcy guesses is half ingrained habit from his time on the run and half personal non-Hulking test.

(Either that, or the partial regeneration he gets from turning into the big green guy heals the holes that must be developing in his stomach lining. Darcy is no stranger to hot food, but there's fire and then there's_ napalm.)_

If it's a bad day—a failed experiment, a mention of Betty or Thunderbolt Ross on the news, a lot of visible flinching from someone sure the mild-mannered doc is about to murder them—he goes into a funk, and Darcy breaks out the cheap chow. At one point, she perches on the edge of his table with her lunch cup of instant macaroni and cheese, and he winds up eating half of it. She can guess why peanut butter and pasta are so important to this well-traveled, supergenius world-class physicist, but she doesn't ask or say. After all, the Lewises weren't exactly rolling in money either, and every time she eats Top Ramen she thinks of her mom.

Today is a "life is good, but the science ain't" kind of day, and Darcy splits the difference on exotic and proposes Mexican.

"All right," Banner says, "but not the real stuff."

Darcy raises an eyebrow at that.

"You know," he elaborates, waving one hand vaguely, "something . . . I don't know. Inauthentic. Is there a Taco Bell near here?"

The eyebrow raise turns into a full-on goggle of amazement. "Doc," Darcy says, putting her hands on her hips, "is there something you wanna tell me? I mean, do you need fresh salmonella samples or something? Because, seriously, I bet Stark could just order them for you." Darcy does not like Taco Bell.

A couple of weeks ago, he would have just shrugged off the question or changed the subject. But maybe all her constant talking and teasing is getting something out of him, because he hems and haws a little and finally explains that he's not very fond of Mexico. He had some bad experiences there, and there was border-crossing involved.

"That jerk," Darcy says, shaking her head when the Ross connection is confirmed. "If I ever meet him I'm going to see just how much he likes thunder and lightning. I'll borrow Myeh-myeh and stick a taser on the end of it. What're they thinking, letting a guy like that run around loose?"

Banner ducks his head a little, and she realizes that she might have been a bit hasty there. Ross is, after all, not her enemy to hate—even if she's gotten a pretty fair idea of the guy from SHIELD's files and already has a standing promise from Thor that, yes, he _will _lend her his giant hammer, and the lifting thing probably won't be a problem because smashing Thunderbolt Ross is about as worthy a cause as Darcy can think of. Still, when it comes down to it, she barely knows the scientist sitting in front of her, not in a way that doesn't involve personnel files . . . and he barely knows her, she remembers, babble or no babble. Talking enemies and angst is a little close to the bone for him. So she switches topics again.

"I'm warning you, I don't know if I can digest Taco Bell," she says, tucking her iPod into her messenger bag. "I'm pretty sure I can scare up a cheap-ass taqueria, though. This is New York, right? Land of a thousand uncleaned grease traps!"

The tiniest smile appears again. He's been doing that a little more often, and it's good to see: a little more unbending, a little less tension, a little more willingness to talk to her. Maybe it's the two semesters of psych classes talking (second choice of major, one semester before settling on poli-sci), but she's finding that she worries about him. That whole "his life sucks" thing . . . and the alarmed look he got the first time she plunked takeout down on the desk in front of him.

How could a guy be so nice, deal with so much, have _Tony freaking Stark _for a friend, and still not be any good at talking to people? It's strange, and more than a little depressing. Some part of her—possibly the part that had such bad luck with boyfriends—wants to find a way to make it all better. Sort of like the way she takes care of Jane, but . . . not. Maybe more like the way _Thor _takes care of Jane, all the "my lady must rest" and "eat this, or you shall not have the strength for your work," but not quite.

Weird.

"It doesn't have to be actively lethal," he says dryly, yanking her out of her increasingly strange thoughts. "The Other Guy gets annoyed when people try to kill me, and I don't know if he can strictly distinguish between poison and take-out. I'd hate to have to replace you."

She stops halfway to the door and turns. "Robert Bruce Banner," she says, "did you just make a _Hulk joke?"_

He raises his eyebrows. "Is that a problem?"

"Au contraire, mon ami," Darcy says, because she's fucking classy like that. "That's a gold-star achievement in the Darcy Lewis Sanity for Superheroes Program. I'm getting you a carrot cake muffin for that."

"How did you know I li-" And he stops, shaking his head a little. "SHIELD files?"

"SHIELD files." She nods, slightly relieved. At least he seems to know that she would've read all there was to read about him, and it doesn't seem to be bringing on a Big Green episode. "Is that bad?" she hazards. "Do you want two muffins? Maybe a croissant?"

"I think one will be fine," he says, his lips quirking just a little bit again. She nods again and, messenger bag slung over her shoulder, heads for the door.

"Darcy?"

She stops at the door and turns again. "What's up?"

"Darcy . . . uh, Miss Lewis . . . I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my full name any more." His eyes flick down to his workstation. "I prefer Bruce or Dr. Banner."

Shit. Shit shit shit. His dad called him Robert, didn't he? It was in the files, too, and she should've remembered. Now if she makes a big deal out of her mistake, he'll clam up, and then her good work (and bribery) will be for naught. No more Hulk jokes for Darcy Lewis.

"Do I have to?" she says, making a show of pouting. "It makes me think of Robert the Bruce. He was the shit!"

" . . . you know who Robert the Bruce was?" he says slowly. "What am I saying, of course you do," he adds, and the moment of darkness seems to pass. "D-Day beaches, right?"

"Bang on the nose, doc. I am a virtual fountain of trivia, both useful and useless. For example, did you know that the little dot over an I is called a 'tittle?' Jane didn't, but I educated her." She preens a little as Bruce shakes his head, clearly amused.

"Bruce or Dr. Banner, please. I'm not sure I want to think of myself as a Scottish monarch who died of leprosy."

"Hey! That was never proven!" Darcy protests. "It could've been syphilis!"

"Who's got syphilis?" says a voice behind her, and Darcy yelps and whips out her taser as she turns. Tony Stark gives a corresponding yelp—very unmanly, almost a 'meep!'—as he jumps back, narrowly avoiding being smacked in the head or zapped by Darcy's very bestest friend in the whole world.

"For crying out loud, Bruce!" he says, flattening himself against the wall. "I came down here to ask a simple question, not fend for my life! Call your dog off, would you?"

"Darcy, don't tase Mr. Stark," Bruce calls from his place by the table.

"Awww, doc! Just a little bit? He was looking at my boobs! I could totally call it sexual harassment."

Tony straightens up with as much dignity as he can muster. "Maybe I was. I'm also standing on the ground and breathing air, two other things which are unavoidable, large of volume, and hard to live without. Bruce, seriously, I give you lab space and this is how you repay me? Has she had her shots?"

Bruce's back is to the door now, but his shoulders are shaking in a very familiar way—familiar to Darcy, but unusual on her boss. Her heart leaps a bit at the sight of it. Not quite laughter, not yet, but if the doc hasn't got the giggles just a little then she, Darcy J. Lewis, is Jesus Christ his personal savior.

Better not to push her luck, though. "You kids play nice," she says as she tucks her taser away. "Doc, I'm gonna go get your lunch. Inauthentic as crap, I promise. Mr. Stark, if you mess with his work I'm calling Miss Potts."

"Jawohl, mein Fuhrer!" Stark calls out as she starts off down the hall. There's a strangled snicker from Bruce, and Darcy's heart lifts again.

When she reaches the nearest taqueria and orders, she can't keep a smile off her face, and she maybe flirts with the counter boy a little too flagrantly. But hey, why shouldn't she? Life is good, and the doc got the giggles. Carrot cake muffins all 'round.

The third time Bruce Banner surprises Darcy Lewis, she learns that he's technically in the US illegally. Not that that bothers her. As far as she's concerned, anyone who wants to keep her favorite scientist out of the country is seriously missing out.


	4. The Fourth Surprise

**Author's Note:** This is actually my favorite chapter out of the whole thing. The prompt here began as a question I asked myself while watching "The Incredible Hulk"—namely, if he was so afraid of being spotted, why the hell didn't Bruce ever try to make himself look different? Me being me, the answer turned into fluff.

**Disclaimer:** Bruce Banner, Darcy Lewis, and all associated characters and concepts are property of Marvel Comics Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

The Fourth Surprise: Bruce Banner can't do disguises.

Five weeks in, and nobody's died. There hasn't even been an Avengers Assemble, which surprises Darcy; normally the team gets called out once a week or so, either to deal with some massive crisis somewhere (hostage situation in Cleveland, stray nukes in Somalia) or simply to be seen by the press and the people of the world. Sort of a "we're still here, and everything's gonna be okay" kind of situation. She wonders idly why the public appearances have fallen off, but though she entertains a few theories, she knows she'll never be able to figure it out without getting more info from SHIELD. And Darcy Lewis likes her job too much to risk it by poking and prodding at the scary secret agent men.

With everything going so smoothly, Darcy finds herself able to request—and be granted—a half-day off. She frets a little about it, sure that either Jane or Bruce will have an emergency and she'll come back on duty eighteen hours later to find one of them unconscious in a pile of science, but she's been pulling long hours to look after her two scientists and she could really use a break from all the genius talk. So she gets her half-day, bribes Thor into babysitting Jane ("I'll help you pick out her birthday present. Seriously, she loves you, but what's she gonna do with a bilchsteim?"), and promises Tony she'll wear a low-cut top for a week if he makes sure Bruce gets fed and walked.

Tony seems a little too eager to agree to the deal, which is weird. After all, Pepper Potts is right there, but she doesn't seem to mind at all. If anything, she gets a laugh out of it, and says something to Tony about "that'll get him moving." Whoever 'he' is.

Pepper Potts. Spooky, spooky woman.

So she clocks out at noon, checks on her scientists one last time, and then heads back to her little midtown apartment (SHIELD cost-of-living supplementary income, how Darcy loves thee) for some well-deserved downtime. She kicks back on the couch, catches up on a couple of her soaps, makes a batch of cupcakes and plans to meet an old college buddy for a movie that evening.

She's right in the middle of washing her hair when her official SHIELD-issued StarkTech phone rings.

"You're shitting me," she mutters, stumbling out of the bathroom with a towel haphazardly wrapped around her soapy curls. It's not a number she recognizes, and the phone slips out of her hand twice before she manages to unlock the screen and answer. "This had better be good," she informs the caller darkly, "because if you're a wrong number, I'm going to find you and make you hurt. Do you know how long it's been since I had an uninterrupted shower? _Seriously_?"

"Uh," the caller begins, and Darcy's stomach clenches. Well, shit. Darcy Lewis, you've just won the Ways Not to Greet Your Sort-of Boss contest. "Um. Never mind-"

"Wait!" she cuts in quickly, before he can hang up. "Shit, I'm sorry. Doc, is that you?"

The phone crackles as he exhales a deep breath. "It depends. Are you going to find me and make me hurt?"

"Well, is this a wrong number?" Darcy shifts the phone and wipes a little water out of her eyes. "Because if so, I'm impressed. What're the odds of accidentally calling someone you know?"

"In New York? About eight million to one. That's not factoring in the out-of-state visitors, and the possibility of shared numbers, of course."

She laughs a little at that. "Aw yeah, talk mathy to me. What's up? Since I'm guessing this isn't a wrong number and you won't be dying, you can tell me. Has Tony been feeding you?"

"Yes, I ate. Listen, I need . . . I need your advice."

He sounds serious, and a little worried, and that gives Darcy pause. She senses something heavy incoming, possibly emotional, and she doesn't know if she's qualified to deal with that quite yet. Avoiding and diverting sensitive stuff is different from weathering it, especially with someone who's been through as much as Robert the Bruce Banner. (Shut up, she can say it inside her head.)

"Enhance your calm, science lord. What's up?"

"Do you know how to die?"

Darcy pauses for a moment, swipes a dangling lock of wet hair back under the towel turban, and shifts the phone to the other ear. "Doc, I'm going to assume that this is one of those hi-_larious_ homonym mixups, because I'm pretty sure that's not a standard Dr. Bruce Banner sort of question. Unless you've been possessed . . . in which case, I'm calling in sick tomorrow. 'Die' as in 'd-y-e,' right?"

"Right. Yeah." He sounds . . . embarrassed? Weird. Shy, yes, but once you've done the whole I-broke-Harlem thing you sort of leave the normal territories of mere chagrin behind.

"And since you don't strike me as the home crafts type, I therefore further deduce that you're talking about hair dye."

"Um."

"Egads, Watson! Are you worried about your looks? Because seriously, I don't think you need to be. So you've got a little silver, big deal! You're rocking the Distinguished Hot Older Man thing, which incidentally is extremely hard to get right. Reed Richards tries it, but he comes off looking more like he should be waiting in a white van outside a middle school. You, on the other hand, are smokin'."

"Darcy, I'm not-" He coughs a little. "Darcy, there was a lab accident. Green may be the Other Guy's color, but it's not mine. A little advice? Please?"

She almost drops the phone again. "Seriously? I mean, _seriously? _What kind of lab accident-?"

"Tony."

"Tony. That's a hell of a lab accident, all right." She discards the towel and pads into her bedroom, naked. "Look, I'm gonna go get dressed, and then I'll come help you. Emergency dye jobs should not be attempted alone, especially if you're a makeover virgin." Why is her mouth still moving? She probably should have stopped when she got to the "Distinguished Hot Older Man" part, but give her a break, she wasn't expecting this on her half-day off. "Where are you? Lab?"

"Uh, no. I'm in my apartment at the Tower. Listen, you don't need to, I just need some advice-"

"The hell I don't. It'll be hard for you to maintain your Zen if you accidentally fry all your hair off, and since my job is to take care of you, I need to be in on this." She gropes around in her closet, trying to find some fresh underwear. "Where are . . . aha! Thought you could hide from me, huh?"

"What?"

"Sorry, I was talking to my bra. Avengers Tower, right? Be there in thirty. Don't do anything without me, doc, and I mean it. There are worse colors than green."

* * *

It shouldn't take her long to get to the Tower, but she makes a quick stop first. After yanking some clothes on and calling her buddy to cancel their movie date, she heads for the nearest Walgreens and buys up what feels like half the hair-care aisle. After all, Darcy Lewis has her own dye job horror stories, but hair that's been attacked by Tony's brand of mad science is a new one on her. A good lab slave has to be prepared for anything.

After a moment's hesitation at the cash register, she pays with her personal Visa rather than the SHIELD card. Technically this is a work-related purchase, but the accounting department watches her expenses like a hawk, and she doesn't want to have to explain Bruce's little accident to the glassy-eyed paper pushers in Finance. Seriously, at least the Hulk just breaks _stuff_. Accountants break _souls._

Thirty-three minutes later she arrives at the Tower, breathless and carrying three plastic shopping bags, her still-damp hair pulled back into a messy braid. The guard behind the front desk raises an eyebrow at her in a very Brucelike fashion, but she just flashes her ID and walks right on past him. Fuck the haters, she's got places to be and scientists to save.

She's never been to the residential floors of the Tower before. She knows Thor lives there, along with Stark and some of the other Avengers, but Thor is over at Jane's place so often that she's honestly never seen where the God of Thunder sleeps. Getting to Bruce's floor requires an access code that she doesn't have, but she asks JARVIS to let her in, and the AI seems to know she's on a mission of mercy. Good man, JARVIS. Good computer, anyway, but it's hard not to think of him as a guy. It's the snark.

Bruce has a whole floor to himself. The elevator lets her out in a wide foyer-slash-living room, with a couple of sleek dark couches and a flat-screen TV set right into the wall itself. Another wall is floor-to-ceiling glass . . . probably easy to repair if there's a little incident and Hulk wants to make a quick exit without compromising the integrity of the whole tower. Aside from that, most of the decoration comes from bookcases, because apparently Bruce Banner has never read a book or scientific journal he doesn't want to keep. There's a few knickknacks—a Rama token, an empty bottle from some kind of South American soda, a cereal bowl half-filled with foreign coins—but for the most part, the place doesn't feel very lived-in. It reminds Darcy of a dorm at the beginning of the semester, when everyone's moved in but the room isn't really homey yet.

There's a creaking sound, and she turns. Bruce is lurking in the doorway, looking as furtive and rumpled as Darcy has ever seen him. Instead of a labcoat, he's wearing a worn CalTech t-shirt and sweatpants, and his hair is tucked under a Yankees cap.

Most of it, anyway. The few curls that escape under the brim of the cap are a violent yellow-green, bleached within an inch of their lives and almost white in some places. As he edges a little further into the room, she realizes that his eyebrows have suffered the same fate, and probably his eyelashes too. Darcy might laugh, but she also sees the angry red blotches of chemical burns on his skin and chooses not to. Clearly this was not a happy night in science land.

He can't seem to meet her eyes, clearly embarrassed by the whole situation, and Darcy shakes her head. "This is why I'm never taking a vacation ever again," she says, setting down the plastic bags. "Jeez, Bruce, what the heck did Stark do? Am I gonna have to tase a bitch?"

"I don't think so," he says, and finally gets up the gumption to walk right over to her. Yep, his eyelashes _are _bleached. It's odd: between his bright hazel eyes and his usual weary look, the color makes him old-young, like a Tolkien Elf. Granted, a Tolkien Elf that had something blow up in his face, but the image is still strange enough to give Darcy pause. "Thanks for coming over. You didn't need to."

She pshaws that and plucks the ball cap off his head. He must have been facing the blast, or fumes, or whatever it was when it happened, because the bleaching is definitely the worst at the front. "I have to make myself useful, right? I mean, I can't kick the crap out of gods, but at least I can make sure you look your best when you do." He half-smiles at that, and she grins back. "Besides, it's a crime to let such excellent hair remain in this condition. I mean, seriously, I would kill for this kind of natural volume."

"Darcy Lewis, stylist to Avengers," he says, definitely amused despite his brand-new platinum-green locks. "That would look good on your resume."

"Yeah, if I was allowed to ever tell anyone about what I do here. At least with this part, they wouldn't believe me." She grabs a straight-backed chair from the kitchen and pushes him down into it, running her fingers through his hair. Wow, that _is _fluffy . . . Why hasn't she done this earlier? For a scientist, he's awfully pettable. "Okay," she adds, trying to keep her mind on the task at hand, "I'm seeing straightforward bleaching here. You've got some split ends, incidentally, so between that and the chemical damage you could probably do with a trim. But it looks like you just washed it, so we should be able to put a couple layers of ash brown on here and get you back to your science lord self in no time. Unless you used some kind of super-duper classified chemical in the explosion, in which case I can't guarantee that your scalp won't fall off."

"Nothing classified," he says, "although some of it might have been stronger than necessary. Tony was impatient."

"That's because Tony is an epic troll." She whisks an old towel around his shoulders and opens up one of the boxes of dye. He squirms a little, protesting that she doesn't have to help, but she pokes him in the shoulder and orders him to sit still.

It's a strange experience, quiet and close. She smooths the dye into his hair, running her hands through the damp waves, and he leans back into her touch just a little and makes a noise under his breath like a contented cat. Darcy feels her cheeks warm and covers up the confusion of the sensation by babbling, talking about everything and nothing that springs to mind. The weather, her plans for the evening, her own hair-care horror stories . . . quite a few of those, too, since she went through a regrettable mallgoth phase in high school.

"Black with red streaks," she confides as she takes another palmful of dye gel. "Bad scene, man. I called myself Bathorie for eight months. Mom had to ban me from answering the phone because every time I did, people thought they'd accidentally called a plumbing supply store."

"Bathory?" he says, half-turning in his seat to look at her. She tsks and motions for him to put his eyes forward again, and he does, but his incredulity still comes through in his voice. "As in Elizabeth Bathory? Bathing in the blood of a hundred virgins?"

"Well, yeah, except I spelled it with an i-e." He snorts, and she pokes him again. "Hey! I was _fifteen. _You can't tell me you never did anything crazy when you were that age."

"I never dyed my hair," he points out. "Although," he adds, "when I was fourteen, I did decide to make a neutron gun in my grandma's garage."

Darcy half-stifles a laugh and tilts his head back to get at the worst of the bleaching. His eyes meet hers, and his expression is oddly abashed. He's telling her the truth? What kind of kid plays with nuclear science at that age? Didn't he have friends?

She decides not to betray his trust, and swallows the half-dozen bits of snark that come to mind. "That doesn't count," she says as she gently works the dye into his hairline. "That's still genius, even if it might've been a little weird. And I refuse to believe you've never dyed your hair before. It's a rite of passage, like your first hangover—the Bad Collegiate Dye Job."

He starts to shake his head, but Darcy tsks again, and he desists. "Nope," he says instead. "First time."

"Not even while you were on the run?" her mouth says before she can clamp it shut. Darcy freezes, her hands stilling in Bruce's damp curls, and winces. "Oh my God, shit, I'm sorry. That's none of my business, right? It's none of my business. My bad. Ignore that."

"It's okay," he says. She chances another look into his eyes, and he doesn't _seem _angry. A little sad, maybe, but . . . well, Darcy can't exactly fault him for that. "And no, I never did. I was never any good at disguising myself . . . and a lot of the time, I never knew if I was going to be staying in one place or running out again. Maintaining a different look is hard under those circumstances. Most of the time it was just a hooded sweatshirt and a baseball cap. And I didn't want to, well, make it easier for people to be comfortable around me."

Darcy's hands pause in the motion of running through his damp hair. He looks back at her, seemingly asking a question with those hazel eyes, and for a moment she's not sure what she can say to that.

"Maybe that's a good thing," she responds finally. "Can you imagine a blond Hulk? I can't."

He smiles, but no laugh. Not yet.

The fourth time Bruce Banner surprises Darcy Lewis, she learns that despite everything, he's not very good at pretending to be anything he's not. And she wonders how she would live if she couldn't be anything other than the woman with the monster inside.


	5. The Fifth Surprise

**Author's Note:** Things come to a head and dangerous business happens.

I didn't originally intend for the story to go this way, but when the idea occurred to me, it latched on and wouldn't let go. Warning: this chapter contains violence, including violence aimed at characters we like. No angst, but plenty of kaboom and ow.

**Disclaimer:** Bruce Banner, Darcy Lewis, and all associated characters and concepts are property of Marvel Comics Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

The Fifth Surprise: Bruce Banner will help, no matter what.

This, Darcy thinks resignedly, is what she gets for going to Starbucks.

It's supposed to be a simple kind of day, and a nice little trip for her pet scientist. Instead of ordering up or making their own, they'll walk to Brewed Awakenings, the coffee shop two blocks from the Tower that has a wonderful run-down air of We Make Coffee and Don't Give a Shit if You're a Superhero. It's Darcy's favorite: nontalkative baristas and not a Macbook in sight.

Bruce doesn't normally make these kinds of trips—he dislikes spending time in public, as Darcy knows well by now—but they're both in a mood to celebrate. Tony Stark had come charging into the lab that morning with his own freshly-dyed hair and a camera, ready to capture what was supposed to be a hilarious image of a bleached Banner, and had been thwarted by Darcy's efforts of the night before. The look of who-took-my-candy disappointment on his face at the sight of a normal (albeit less gray than usual) Bruce had now become Darcy's desktop wallpaper.

But Brewed Awakenings is closed for renovation, after after a moment's ranting at the boarded-up facade, Darcy turns on her heel to look at Bruce. He looks back at her a little warily, as if she's about to explode, but lets a little tension seep out when she gives him the full grin. "Sorry about that, science lord," she says as cheerfully as she can. "Let's find another coffee place, okay? Don't let my nasty attitude ruin your big day out."

"You know, I _do _leave the tower occasionally," he points out as she falls into step beside him. "And I've lived in New York before. This isn't exactly a novel experience for me, going out."

She purses her lips at him and takes his arm, and he's so surprised that he doesn't object. "Look, doc, ever since I was posted in the Lab of Doom the most exciting thing I've seen you do is get an accidental bleach job. Maybe you were a party animal before we met, but in the time I've been there I haven't seen you do crap, and that's not healthy. A whole month of nothing but me and Stark for company? You're gonna end up warped. So we'll find another coffee place, I'll run interference in case any other women decide they want to break off a piece of physicist, and maybe we can get crazy and have a scone or something. It's not like the equations are gonna get cold."

"Scone, yes," he says dryly, "but I don't think you have to worry about other women. I'm not exactly a prize specimen."

Darcy pokes him. "See what I mean? Warped. What is this world coming to, when hot people don't even know they're hot?" His cheeks color, and she grins at him, tugging on his arm a little. "On the other hand, it means I get to have you all to myself."

"You," he says a little hopelessly, "have clearly been reading the Tony Stark Rules for Appropriate Workplace Behavior." But he's still blushing, just a little, and he doesn't seem horribly distressed by her compliments. "I suppose I can't complain, though. It's been a long time since I've been sexually harassed by a beautiful woman."

"First a Hulk joke. Now an adorkably sweet compliment." Darcy shakes her head, trying to ignore the little happy dance her heart is doing. _Shut up, traitor. _"Just you watch, doc. We'll have you back to your old life-of-the-science-party self in no time. What d'you think? Starbucks? We can do espresso shots and play Spot the Hipster."

"I thought we were going to get scones?"

"Nah. That's just what I say to lure you into my wicked trap." Darcy uses her free hand to make Evil Claws. "Resistance is futile."

"Obviously," Bruce says, completely straight-faced. "Starbucks, yes, but no espresso. Loading me up with concentrated caffeine is never a good idea."

"Are you sure? Doing tea shots just . . . it just doesn't have that same je ne sais quoi, y'know?"

The argument continues all the way to the Starbucks, which—this being Manhattan, after all—is only about a block away. Frankly, Darcy is surprised there wasn't one closer, but the city _is _still being rebuilt. Doubtless that'll be corrected in a week or two. They duck in under the oh-so-bistro green awning, Bruce chuckling just a little, Darcy poking fun at him and making up ideas on the fly for ways to combine tea and shots. As they walk in the door, she's up to the fourth one (and has started inventing Avengers-themed ones, because a Big Green with green tea, absinthe, and just a splash of crème de menthe and Bailey's sounds awful in a completely irresistible way), and it takes her a few seconds to notice that for a Starbucks, the place is awfully quiet. And why are the shades drawn?

The door slams shut behind them. The lock clicks.

"I told you we should've put up the Closed sign," a man grunts in the dimness. Darcy stiffens, and she can feel Bruce's arm tense up, the muscles standing out under his rumpled button-down like steel bands.

It figures. With her luck, right?

Fucking Starbucks.

They've clearly walked into a hold-up, or hostage situation, in progress. Half a dozen patrons are kneeling in the center of the artfully tiled floor, their hands ziptied behind their backs, their cell phones in a crushed heap. There are five standing men around the edge of the room, each carrying a rifle that looks way too . . . _alien _for ordinary city thugs. Bruce's breath hitches, and she knows what he's thinking. Just how many Chitauri corpses did SHIELD miss in the cleanup, anyway? How many of their weapons wound up in the hands of people who were just bright enough to make them work?

Five, at least. One for each tough. And the hostage-takers do look tough—coarse, experienced men, all in brand-new high-end clothes and leather jackets that don't have any wear patterns on them yet. One's sporting a diamond earring, and it looks like a fresh piercing. Darcy automatically files that away, because since joining SHIELD she's gotten way too good at looking at a situation and thinking like she'll have to report details to the authorities later. Career thugs, lately come up in the world thanks to their shiny new tech.

Judging by the pretty redheaded manager one is holding by her neck, they're here to settle a personal vendetta. The woman's eyes are wide, but she's clearly doing her best not to panic.

Good for her, Darcy thinks, as a gun is shoved into the small of her back. She chances a glance at Bruce, but he's gone stiff and glacial, his hands trembling. It takes an additional shove by the nearest tough to bring him—slowly—to his knees.

Control, she adds to herself. This is a hostage situation, close-quarters—not exactly the ideal situation for him, especially when his alternate self deals in collateral damage. He has to keep a lid on the Other Guy, at least for the time being, and having attention focused on him isn't going to help.

"Oh, jeez," she says, and the barrels of the guns swing her way. She lets go of Bruce's arm and 'accidentally' falls back on her butt, scrambling towards the wall. "Oh jeez, oh fuck, oh fuck. What's going on, man?"

"Shut up!" one of the men yells, but at least now their attention is on her and not Bruce. A horrible feeling is creeping over her, the feeling—no, the _knowledge_ that before this is over she's going to get her first glimpse of the Hulk. And no matter how that shapes up, it's gonna _suck. _But if she keeps the gunmen from trying to kick the crap out of Bruce, maybe Big Green won't make his appearance until the right moment . . . whatever that might be.

"I swear, I'm not gonna do anything," she babbles, holding up her hands and letting her voice slip into a slightly higher register. After all, she's just a stupid college chick, right? "I just wanted some coffee, dude. I'm not gonna do anything. I don't know anything about the Symbionese Liberation Army or whatever you're doing-"

"I said, _shut up!" _

Something cracks hard across Darcy's cheek, and she falls, landing hard on her side and sprawling awkwardly across the tiles. Blood trickles into one eye, momentarily blinding her, and she bites back a stream of Asgardian cursing—thank you very much Thor—in favor of a whimper of pain. It hurts like a bitch, but Darcy has always been the don't-get-scared-get-mad type, especially in the wake of New Mexico. Now she's the only one of the two intruders that's standing out in the men's minds, and while her attacker hauls her to her feet, Bruce is shoved into the hostage huddle with barely a comment.

She's dumped next to him, and his expression is tense, torn between fear and . . . She's not sure what, but her heart freezes just a little when she sees the look on his face. He bends towards her, touching her face with one broad hand, wiping the blood away from her eye. His touch is warm, a little too warm, and she gives him a cheeky wink .

_Got a plan? _she mouths at him. He looks surprised, but his features soften a little, and he blots the last of the blood with the cuff of his shirt.

_Yes. Hang on, _he tells her. She relaxes just a little, because the doc has a plan, and even if her pulse is racing at the knowledge that the Hulk is about to come out she trusts her favorite awkward physicist.

"Who's going nowhere now, huh, bitch?" the leader of the men is yelling as he shakes the terrified manager. "It's a new world! New rules! And I'm gonna be on top of it all!"

She can feel Bruce nudging her, and she moves, following his lead. She shuffles forward a little, making it look like nervous twitching as best she can. He wraps one arm around her, and she curls into him. His heart is pounding under her cheek, and his breath is hot against her ear as they pull into what looks like a panicked huddle.

"Weapons training?" he whispers, and she nods against his chest. It's required at SHIELD, even for the lab slaves. "Make a noise. I'll take the guards. When one drops his gun, protect the hostages. Leader's attention will be on me."

Darcy nods again, her pulse racing. She grips his hand, oh-so-scared, the stupid little kid who's not sure what's going on . . . and how much of that is a fake? She's not sure. But they're in a lousy fucking situation and she has to help, because she's been given a lot more than six college credits since Puente Antiguo and she couldn't look herself or the god of your choice in the face if she didn't.

He squeezes back against her grip, and she lets herself be comforted, just for a little moment.

Then the moment is past, and it's time to get to work. Darcy detaches herself from Bruce and starts rocking back and forth, swearing and sobbing and generally kicking up an I'm-having-a-panic-attack sort of fuss. One of the thugs grabs her by her hair.

Game on.

She's expecting Hulk to happen. Maybe even a little moment of Bruce being sneaky, or knocking the gun out of the guy's hand or something. She straight-up is not expecting Bruce fucking Banner to know kung-fu.

Or maybe not kung-fu, maybe muay thai or krav maga or whatever else it is you pick up while you're meditating and doctoring your way around the world. All she knows is that the hand in her hair gives one nasty wrench, the man screams, and then he collapses in a heap as Bruce snaps his wrist like a cheap breadstick. His gun goes clattering to the floor, just like the doc said, and Darcy dives for it.

Shouts erupt. What feels like a bolt of pure white-hot energy shoots just over her head, frying several stray locks of hair off, and a second man goes down hard courtesy of Sensei Banner. The third and the fourth are actually _aiming _now, bolts of energy slamming into the quick-moving doctor, and Darcy can't quite restrain a shriek—yelp—scream? She's not sure.

It's warranted. Green things are happening. Bruce seems to lunge upwards from the floor, but no, he's not jumping—he's _growing. _The big man, the Other Guy, erupts out from the shape of Bruce Banner as if he was trapped and has finally made that last jump to freedom. And oh God, he's bigger than the freaking Destroyer, a mottled wall covered with green leathery skin and bulging with horrifying amounts of muscle. His shirt falls away in shreds, his pants are barely holding together, but even Darcy can't think about indecent exposure when every cell in her body is telling her that she should be running.

He roars, a sound like a T. Rex spotting a particularly juicy chaos theorist, and Darcy feels her blood freeze in her veins.

The third man goes down hard. Hulk swats him like a fly, an open-handed Bitchslap of the Gods that sends him hurtling through the shades, the window glass, and crash-landing face-first in a mailbox outside. His gun goes skittering to the floor too, and the impact sends several energy bolts lancing into the shop's ceiling. Cracks begin to appear, and Darcy doesn't intend to stick around and see how bad it gets: she grabs a piece of broken glass, muffles one edge with a fallen napkin, and starts slicing hostages' ziptie bonds as fast as she can. The door's still locked, but the window sure as hell isn't, and crawling over broken glass doesn't seem so bad now that there's an angry Hulk in the shop.

The fourth man and the leader are standing their ground, concentrating bursts of fire on the Hulk. His growl rises, an audibly shortening fuse, and he seizes one of the bistro tables and hurls it. Leader-man ducks, dragging his manager hostage down behind the counter with him. Fourth man doesn't, and if Darcy knows anything, she knows that he'll never get up again.

"Keep the fuck back!" Leader yells, and the manager screams. Hulk stops dead, crouched over with his knuckles on the floor, his eyes glinting and his face contorted in the same rage Darcy has seen in all the video clips and news reports. "Keep the fuck back, or I blow her fucking head off!"

Hulk's teeth are bared, but he's not moving forward. He seems to recognize that there's a person's life in danger, and Darcy can't help wondering if he's ever been in _this _situation before—not monster versus monster, or Hulk versus a mob, but facing one person and one hostage who might die any second. Face-to-face with breakable people.

The Hulk is enraged, but he's not completely chaotic . . . or the hostage would be already dead. Darcy's heart shivers a little in her chest as she rearranges her grip on the weapon.

Leader is rising up from behind the counter again, gun in one hand and his free one clamped around the redhead. "That's right," he says, tightening his grip on her. "Back. Off. You keep yourself away, and nobody has to die, got it?"

Hulk's growl rises again. Leader is white-faced, the blood draining away in knee-knocking terror that Darcy recognizes, but his grip is tight and the gun is steady in his hand. "You too," he hisses at Darcy. "Drop the piece and no one gets hurt."

Darcy drops the gun. The rest of the hostages are gone, taking their chances with the broken glass, and now it's just the four of them in the trashed Starbucks. Chips of paint land on Darcy's shoulder, and her hair is sprinkled with concrete dust. Is the ceiling-? She hopes not.

A moron with a gun, and a collapsing Starbucks. That's a crap way to die.

"You're not gonna make it," she says, and her voice surprises even her. "We're, what, a block from Avengers Tower? You haven't got a prayer, pal. Put the weapon down, let her go, and we can talk. In case you haven't noticed, you've got the freaking _Hulk _here."

"And the Hulk won't touch me while I've got her," he says, and drags the manager towards the window. "Maybe he's a little smarter than he looks." Hulk tenses, muscles flexing under his skin, and Darcy hopes he can restrain himself.

"Please don't," she whispers, half to him and half to whatever deities might be listening, and he doesn't. Not yet.

Then there's a groan, and the report of a gun. She realizes a little too late that at least one of the downed men isn't dead, because the energy bolt from the stolen Chitauri weapon bounces off the Hulk's broad back and crashes into the ceiling. Then it's all noise and crashing, and a scream.

Darkness settles over her. Something is crushing her. She can't breathe. The world's fading to black.

The fifth time Bruce Banner surprises Darcy Lewis, she feels like she's about to die. But even as she slips into unconsciousness, she can feel the stomping of huge green feet and a roar from the Other Guy that just might be her name, and she knows he's not gonna let her go easy.


	6. One More Never Hurt

**Author's Note:** I was surprised it lead to this, but in retrospect, I should have expected it. I love the Marvel cinematic universe, but actions have consequences. Fortunately, this is fluff, not angst.

Thanks to everyone who's read, faved, and reviewed my first steps into purely Avengers fiction, not to mention Bruce/Darcy. Considering that this pairing is making a spirited attempt to eat my brain, there may be more. I also have (in addition to my other ongoing projects) a half-finished Thor fic, and a couple of Pepperony plotbunnies gnawing on me. Stupid awesome characters.

**Disclaimer:** Bruce Banner, Darcy Lewis, and all associated characters and concepts are property of Marvel Comics Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

One More Never Hurt: Darcy Lewis bounces back.

She takes a deep breath as the nurse cranks the back of her bed up, and tries to steady her nerves. She needs to, because for the first time in three days, she's allowed visitors. And she _knows _that in about thirty seconds, she's going to be face-to-face with a fluffy-haired heap of shame and contrition that sometimes goes by Bruce Banner, and she is _not _having that.

Darcy flexes her right arm, working out the kinks in the muscle. Her left is limp, with what remains of the hand bandaged and hooked up to what looks like every machine the hospital could find. That's going to be the first problem: he'll see that arm and it's shame, shame, shame, and she would totally make a Jewish guilt joke if Bruce wasn't still kind of off-kilter about that whole 'religion' thing. Though he might be okay with it if he thinks it'll make her feel better . . . but it won't, because all things considered she could be feeling a lot worse, and using pretend trauma to mock the fluffy doc is something she just can't do.

The door opens, there's a moment of silence, and then there he is.

He looks like hell.

Seriously. Darcy had a building fall on her, and she looks better than he does. Bags under his eyes, messy clothes that probably haven't been changed in the past three days, and maybe even a little more silver in his hair than before. His eyes flick to her left arm, his face crumples, and he almost turns around before he realizes that she's looking at him expectantly.

"Darcy," he says, and her heart breaks a little because he sounds like he wants to run away and never stop. "Darcy, I—I'm so sorry. I never meant . . . look, I mean, I'll understand if you don't want to . . . anything I can do to help, I . . ."

"Chill, science lord," she says. Immature? Maybe, but c'mon, she's still on the _good _drugs, and if she can't joke about his guiltiness she can at least try to get rid of it as fast as possible. "And have a seat. I asked the nurse to move the chair so it's facing the door—I know you don't like that whole back-to-potential-bad-guys thing."

He stops in the doorway, eyeing her uncertainly. She clucks her tongue and jerks her head towards the chair. After a moment, he cautiously skirts the end of the bed and pauses by the chair, but doesn't sit.

"Are you sure-" he begins.

"God, Bruce, if you even think about apologizing again I'm going to start fining you. Sit down, for crying out loud. You look like you haven't slept for days." She squirms a little, making herself a bit more comfortable against the raised back of the bed. "By the way, you're so lucky you have a Y chromosome. They won't let me wear a decent bra! Underwires mess with their equipment or something. I'm gonna have the backache of the _century_ when I get out of here. I don't suppose you can get Black Widow to smuggle me in one? Baked in a cake or something?"

"Darcy," he says again, and he still hasn't sat down. Even the comment about her boobs isn't derailing the worry train, which Darcy can't help respecting—even if it does scare and annoy her too."I can't stay," he continues slowly. "I needed to tell you . . . I'm sorry."

The words seem to be wrenched out of him. Is it something he _has _to say, or it might eat him inside? Darcy doesn't know, but she senses that more sarcasm and babble might not be the right approach. Instead, she brushes a limp lock of hair away from her face and meets his eyes.

"You don't have to be sorry, Bruce. It wasn't your fault." She nods to the chair again. "Now come on, sit down. You can spare me five minutes, I bet."

Maybe being allowed to actually get his apology out has its effect, because he sits. His gaze has dropped again, though, and he seems to have trouble sitting still. His shoulders are bowed like he's carrying a massive weight on them. Maybe he is. Atlas has shrugged . . . and now it sucks to be Atlas, because the weight of the world's about to fall on his foot.

"SHIELD isn't going to fire you," he says, and there's steel alongside the worry in his voice. "You were injured in the line of duty, protecting people. You'll keep your job, and get the best care possible, if I have to have the Other Guy weigh in on it. I won't let them get rid of you." He runs a hand through his hair, disordering the already-messy waves. "I won't."

"Bruce," Darcy says, and his name comes out unexpectedly soft and tender. Et tu, larynx? "Relax."

"How can I relax?" he says, a harsh twist to the words as his head snaps up again. "You were hurt. You could have been _killed._ God, Darcy, your _arm-"_

"-is fixable," Darcy interrupts, and she reaches out her one good hand and grabs his fingers before they can clench into fists. "Bruce . . . and I say this as your affectionate and loyal lab slave . . . stop freaking out. I . . . look, I'm scared, okay? I was scared then too, but it was worse. I'll be okay now. I'm just working through it, and it's going to be okay." The words come tumbling out, and she's not sure where they're coming from. "I've been through bad stuff before. I was within seconds of getting my head fried off in New Mexico, all right? I did my time in bad dreams then, and I've accepted that this world is full of big, big things that might hurt me." Bruce's lip curls, and she knows he's getting ready to curse himself and the Other Guy again. She can't have that, and gives his fingers a squeeze. "And it's full of amazing things that can help me, too. Like you, and Hulk."

"If it hadn't been for him—us—you wouldn't be in this situation," Bruce insists, but his conviction is failing a little. Fifteen years older than her or not, he looks lost and very young at that moment. She wants to hold him and tell him everything's going to be okay. But she can't . . . maybe not just yet.

"That's not true. So we went out for coffee and I got a little banged up. You know what? My other SHIELD job is working for Jane freaking Foster. I almost got caramelized by the Destroy-o-bot when I hadn't even completed my _internship _with her. And if you want to talk targets, she's Thor's girlfriend. Who knows what kind of collateral damage I could wind up as if someone decides to kidnap her? And _she _can't kick ass." Darcy frees her good hand and wiggles her fingers at Bruce. "I go for coffee every day. And this time? If it weren't for you and Hulk, I'd be Swiss Assistant." She pauses. "Aswisstant?"

"Darcy . . . if this is your way of reassuring me, it's . . ." Bruce grapples with his words. "It's not very reassuring," he finishes lamely.

"The truth usually doesn't sound so good," Darcy says. "But I'll be okay. Better than okay. Honestly, I think you're more upset than I am."

His eyes flick over her, over what must be the bad hair day of the century—not to mention the bruising, the complete lack of makeup, and the maimed arm. He's definitely not reassured, and he's probably wondering just how much of a knock on the head she got.

"Aren't you worried?" he said. "You got . . . you almost lost an arm, and your hand isn't . . ."

"Didn't I say it was fixable?" she says. "Trust me. Or rather, trust Stark." Bruce looks blank, and she grins at him, just a little. "Okay, so you're sort of not my first visitor. More like first _official _visitor. When I woke up yesterday, there was an Iron Man outside the window." Bruce opens his mouth, and Darcy plows on before he can object. "He's going to put together something Luke Skywalker-y to fill in the gaps. And before you get guilty on me again, he says cybernetics is a natural extension of his tech, and he wants to give me all the bells and whistles since I'll be his first official test subject. I could probably get him to hide a taser in it."

Bruce looks like he's going to be sick for a moment, and then a strangled laugh escapes. Darcy squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back as he bends over, laughing in disbelief and exasperation and fear and, yeah, amusement. Not a chuckle, not a giggle—the Big Kahuna of L.O.L. The grin on her face must be a mile wide, and the nurse sticks her head in the door and looks at them both in shock, because evidently she never expected to see Bruce freaking Banner _laughing._

Darcy likes his laugh. It rumbles down her arm into her, tickling her nerves, and even the good drugs don't feel quite like that.

"A taser," he says as he gets his breath back. His glasses have fallen into his lap, and Darcy snakes them away, polishing the lenses on the bedspread before she returns them. He sets them back on his nose with a grin of his own—weary, yeah, but he seems to have passed beyond grief and guilt into some kind of Zen state of humor, and Darcy's okay with that. "Why do the words 'joy buzzer' spring to mind?"

"Actually, I was just thinking I could use it on that Whole Foods cashier who keeps making fun of my lipstick, but that's not a bad idea." Darcy cocks her head. "You've got a pretty sneaky mind under that fluffy hair, don't you, doc?"

"I learned from the best," he says, and squeezes her one good hand. Darcy flushes and looks down at the blanket.

"Yeah, but Stark's not here right now, so you're gonna have to take remedial with me," is all she can think of to say. He laughs again, just a little, and she thinks she _will _have to put a joy buzzer in the new hand just for him. And maybe paint it bright Hulk green, because he'd smiled that one time she wore the knockoff Hulk top she got from Crazy Ahmed's cart in the Square and because even more than that she wanted him to know that she _didn't mind, dammit. _And oh boy, Darcy, you've got it bad don't you?

"That's strange," he responds. "You're a lot of things, Darcy, but I didn't think you were coy." His words are positively teasing, and her stomach flutters a little.

"You know me, science lord, I aim to surprise," she says.

"Yes," he replies. "You really do."

* * *

The hundredth time Darcy Lewis surprises Bruce Banner, he realizes that some people aren't as fragile as they appear. And he knows that he doesn't have to be afraid for her.

The hundredth and first time comes two weeks later, when she shakes Fury's hand with her new Hulk-green taser gauntlet and gets put on one month's suspension. It's kind of worth it, though, because as the guards escort her out she laughs and kisses him.


End file.
